Joseph Epstein, still as sharp as a whistle, in The Weekly Standard. JE’s coinage “virtucrat” (“any man or woman who is certain that his or her political views are not merely correct but deeply, morally righteous in the bargain”) is the precursor to the term “virtue-signaling”, the condition befalling many academics, politicians and in all probability many…

Died on this day. See Housman’s entry in Poetry Foundation. I came to know Housman through his classical scholarship and only much later got round to reading his poetry. Housman was a scathe merchant of the highest order, sometimes it felt like wrestling with a razor blade. One of my favorite quotes of his could well…

Eliot and Swinburne have been part of my consciousness for many years but for different reasons. The former I primarily knew for his Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley (his Harvard dissertation) and the for latter, my curiosity was piqued through my walking regularly past 11 Putney Hill, Sw15 on my way to…

I’ve always felt that Housman was one of the sharpest and most insightful intellects of his day and certainly beyond, a caste of mind not terribly dissimilar to that other danger man, Bernard Williams. In critical mode reading them is akin to handling razor blades. Below is Housman as scathing classicist. After that is Richard Dawkins reading some…

I’ve always described Housman’s intellect as akin to “wrestling with razor blades” as least in his classical scholarship. I chanced upon the The Housman Society which I’m pleased to see has been ticking along for almost 40 years. My first exposure to AEH’s austere intellect was through Gow’s A. E. Housman: A Sketch Together with a List of…